"Because you talk too nice about these damned green bastards. The Kloros were good to you, eh? Well, they weren't good to my brother. They killed him. I think maybe I kill you, you damned greenie spy."
And he charged.
Stuart barely had time to raise his arms to meet the infuriated farmer. He gasped out, "What the hell-" as he caught one wrist and heaved a shoulder to block the other which groped toward his throat.
His artiplasm hand gave way. Polyorketes wrenched free with scarcely an effort.
Windham was bellowing incoherently, and Leblanc was calling out in his reedy voice, "Stop it! Stop it!" But it was little Mulkn who threw his arms about the farmer's neck from behind and pulled with all his might. He was not very effective; Polyorketes seemed scarcely aware of the little man's weight upon his back. Mullen's feet left the floor so that he tossed helplessly to right and left. But he held his grip and it hampered Polyorketes sufficiently to allow Stuart to break free long enough to grasp Windham's aluminum cane.
He said, "Stay away, Polyorketes."
He was gasping for breath and fearful of another rush. The hollow aluminum cylinder was scarcely heavy enough to accomplish much, but it was better than having only his weak hands to defend himself with.
Mullen had loosed his hold and was now circling cautiously, his breathing roughened and his jacket in disarray.
Polyorketes, for a moment, did not move. He stood there, his shaggy head bent low. Then he said, "It is no use. I must kill Kloros. Just watch your tongue, Stuart. If it keeps on rattling too much, you're liable to get hurt. Really hurt, I mean."
Stuart passed a forearm over his forehead and thrust the cane back at
Windham, who seized it with his left hand, while mopping his bald pate vigorously with a handkerchief in his right.
Windham said, "Gentlemen, we must avoid this. It lowers our prestige. We must remember the common enemy. We are Earthmen and we must act what we are-the ruling race of the Galaxy. We dare not demean ourselves before the lesser breeds."
"Yes, Colonel," said Stuart, wearily. "Give us the rest of the speech tomorrow."
He turned to Mullen, "I want to say thanks."
He was uncomfortable about it, but he had to. The little accountant had surprised him completely.
But Mullen said, in a dry voice that scarcely raised above a whisper, "Don't thank me, Mr. Stuart. It was the logical thing to do. If we are to be interned, we would need you as an interpreter, perhaps, one who would understand the Kloros."
Stuart stiffened. It was, he thought, too much of the bookkeeper type of reasoning, too logical, too dry of juice. Present risk and ultimate advantage. The assets and debits balanced neatly. He would have liked Mullen to leap to his defense out of-well, out of what? Out of pure, unselfish decency?
Stuart laughed silently at himself. He was beginning to expect idealism of human beings, rather than good, straight-forward, self-centered motivation.
Polyorketes was numb. His sorrow and rage were like acid inside him, but they had no words to get out. If he were Stuart, big-mouth, white-hands Stuart, he could talk and talk and maybe feel better. Instead, he had to sit there with half of him dead; with no brother, no Aristides-
It had happened so quickly. If he could only go back and have one second more warning, so that he might snatch Aristides, hold him, save him.
But mostly he hated the Kloros. Two months ago, he had hardly ever heard of them, and now he hated them so hard, he would be glad to die if he could kill a few.
He said, without looking up, "What happened to start this war, eh?"
He was afraid Stuart's voice would answer. He hated Stuart's voice. But it was Windham, the bald one.
Windham said, "The immediate cause, sir, was a dispute over mining concessions in the Wyandotte system. The Kloros had poached on Earth property."
"Room for both, Colonel!"
Polyorketes looked up at that, snarling. Stuart could not be kept quiet for long. He was speaking again; the cripple-hand, wiseguy, Kloros-lover.
Stuart was saying, "Is that anything to fight over, Colonel? We can't use one another's worlds. Their chlorine planets are useless to us and our oxygen ones are useless to them. Chlorine is deadly to us and oxygen is deadly to them. There's no way we could maintain permanent hostility. Our races just
don't coincide. Is there reason to fight then because both races want to dig iron out of the same airless planetoids when there are millions like them in the Galaxy?"
Windham said, "There is the question of planetary honor-"
"Planetary fertilizer. How can it excuse a ridiculous war like this one? It can only be fought on outposts. It has to come down to a series of holding actions and eventually be settled by negotiations that might just as easily have been worked out in the first place. Neither we nor the Kloros will gain a thing."
Grudgingly, Polyorketes found that he agreed with Stuart. What did he and Aristides care where Earth or the Kloros got their iron?
Was that something for Aristides to die over?
The little warning buzzer sounded.
Polyorketes' head shot up and he rose slowly, his lips drawing back. Only one thing could be at the door. He waited, arms tense, fists balled. Stuart was edging toward him. Polyorketes saw that and laughed to himself. Let the Kloro come in, and Stuart, along with all the rest, could not stop him.
Wait, Aristides, wait just a moment, and a fraction of revenge will be paid back.
The door opened and a figure entered, completely swathed in a shapeless, billowing travesty of a spacesuit.
An odd, unnatural, but not entirely unpleasant voice began, "It is with some misgivings, Earthmen, that my companion and myself-"